From Where I Stand - 10. Chapter 10

 

“Alright Jase, you gotta give that back to me sometime soon, I still need to finish it.”

Jase popped up his head from staring at my drawing and showed me his silly grin. “Aww, but I’m not done ogling over it.”

“Haha, would you rather look at that than me cause I’ll make you a copy if that’s the case.”

“Hmm…tempting offer…and actually I’m not ogling over the picture of you so much. I’m more interested in this one of me.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah…you made me look hot.”

“HA! Well duh, you are.”

“Yeah I know, but not this hot.”

“Jase, you must have the most screwed up vanity complex I’ve ever seen.”

“Haha, cool huh? I can think portrayals of me are incredibly sexy, but I don’t think I am myself. It’s great, I can avoid being called vain, but still be narcissistic.”

I just rolled my eyes and shook my head at him. “Sometimes I wish I was dating a dumb jock…at least then I wouldn’t hear such profound bull all the time. Fucking writers,” I said with a grin followed by a display of my tongue as Jase flipped me off.

“Heh, well too bad, you’ve got me. Besides, I’m the one making compromises,” he said as he put down my drawing pad and hopped onto my lap as I sat at my desk. “After all, it’s hard having a boyfriend with such a limited vocabulary, but I guess someone has to date the dorky science boys.” He was smiling ear to ear…I could practically count his teeth…in fact I think I started and got to 10 before I caught myself and stopped.

“Ha ha. Well it’s not my fault you don’t understand half the words I use sometimes just because they’re all over eight syllables.”

“Y’know, scientists are way too long-winded. Who the fuck comes up with some of this crap anyway?” he inquired while glancing briefly at the biology book I was studying from.

“Like I know…biologists are especially bad. Seriously, who names a protein Sonic Hedgehog?”

“It’s actually called that?” He looked a bit shocked.

“Yup…and there’s also an Indian Hedgehog…god.”

“That’s screwed up. Please tell me you won’t be one of those guys in like 10 years.”

“You won’t like me if I am?” I asked with the best imitation sad puppy face I could manage.

“Oh I’ll like you still, but I won’t be able to be seen with you in public…it’ll be too embarrassing. Oh and if you ever get a pocket protector, I’m breaking up with you.”

“Haha. Deal.”

Jase shifted a little in my lap so he was straddling me. I had gotten more used to him sitting on me despite the fact that he was still heavier than me. It was even a bit cozy.

“I really love it by the way, the drawing,” he whispered as he leaned in to kiss me.

“Mmm…glad to hear it. Oh yeah, you really are that hot…though maybe I did exaggerate your ass a bit.”

“Oh ha ha. That’s one part of me you can’t over exaggerate.” He grinded his ass a little into my lap.

“Hehe, now Jase, if you wanted me to pop your cherry, you just had to ask.”

He laughed and leaned in again. “You know that doesn’t sound like too bad of an idea…” I could feel his breath with the last few words as he came in, tongue first. I closed my eyes and just took in the feeling of his soft lips caressing mine. Our breathing picked up a bit and settled into a nice even unison as we kept our lips locked in a slow and very sensual embrace. Jase pulled back a little and I opened my eyes.

“Hey, um…you know come to think of it, we haven’t really had that talk yet,” Jase tried to inform me.

“What talk?”

“You know…the sex talk.”

“Oh…that talk.”

“Yeah…hey, I don’t want to push or anything…I know we are doing everything kinda slow so we get it right.” He held my hands and gave them a reassuring squeeze. I could feel that he was a bit tense about the subject.

“Hey…Jase, if something is gonna happen, then I say we just let it. I mean, I’m a bit nervous about all of it, but it’s you…I don’t think I could be more ok with it than when I’m with you.”

He smiled slightly. “Me too…everything pretty much feels right with you.” He stood up a bit and pulled me along. The next moment Jase was lying on my bed and pulling me on top of him. “But there is one thing though.”

“Alright, what venereal disease do you have?” I sighed with what I hoped was plenty of apparent sarcasm.

“Haha. No, I’m serious though…I need to do something before we do anything more.”

That peaked my curiosity a little. “Oh? And what would that be?”

He slid his arms around me and held me close to him. I heard him inhale deeply and he closed his eyes for a moment. “Chris…I need to tell you this.” He reached up a little to find my lips and kissed them lightly. “I love you.” If Jase and the bed weren’t under me, I’m pretty sure my jaw would have hit the floor. I was speechless. I tried to squeak out something intelligible, but he stopped me. “Hey, you don’t need to say anything if you don’t want to, I just needed to tell you. I was looking for the right moment and given my bad timing, I figured I should try to do it as soon as possible before I ended up fucking it up,” he laughed out.

“Jase…I love you too. I mean it.” I fell down on top of him and just squeezed his body. I had felt like telling him that for a while…but I wasn’t sure how to do it. I was sure about it though…it felt like the way I had felt about Justin…it just felt better.

“Whew…well that was nerve-racking.” He giggled a little and I felt his heart beat slow down a little bit as his anxiety passed.

“Hey, thanks for telling me…I don’t know if I would have had the nerve to say it first,” I squeaked out meekly.

“Aww…you would have, I know that. Actually if we waited long enough, I probably would have written it and you probably would have hidden the message in a drawing somewhere.”

“Haha. Yeah probably. I think we both need to work on our speaking skills a bit, huh?”

“Heh, yeah maybe.” He kissed me quickly which brought an even bigger smile to my face.

“So, how much more do you have to do on that? Oh and can you turn in a copy so I can keep the original?” He was smirking and pointing at my drawing.

“Heh, I’ll give it to you after Mr. Harris is done with it…and if the bastard marks it at all I’ll skin him alive.”

“Haha. Cool…it’s really great Chris. How’d you think this up?”

“Um…I was reading the journal.”

“Ooooh…the deep messy part?”

“Yeah.”

“Ahh, that explains it a bit. Man, if I ever get around to writing a book, I want you to do some artwork for it…no one else would be able to interpret what I’m writing like you can.”

“Heh…speaking of which, why don’t you start something?”

“A book?”

“Yeah why not? It might be good for an assignment or three in your writing class right? Or you could use it as a writing sample for a college app.”

Jase looked up into a corner with his eyes and his lower lip shifted to one side…he could look so cute when he was thinking…I swear some of the faces he would make were priceless.

“Hmm…maybe I will. I gotta think of something to write about though…writing stuff to you is one thing, but I don’t want some unionized perverts reading that stuff,” he conceded.

“Haha. Hey, I’m drawing stuff for those unionized perverts.”

“Yeah…are you gonna end up displaying this?”

“I’m gonna ask him not to…actually I’m gonna insist that he doesn’t. This is too personal.”

“What if he marks you down for not displaying it?”

“Then I’ll go have a chat with the dean. It’s good to know people in high places.”

“Heh, yeah definitely. Oh speaking of people you know…who’s this guy you were talking to up in Cambridge?”

“Huh? Oh, Ryan?”

“Ryan huh…first name basis already? Should I be jealous?” he joked with an amused look on his face.

“Haha…well he was kinda hot…”

“Ooooo…now I am jealous.”

“Heh, well don’t be…he’s straight.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, but it was kinda weird…apparently he could spot that I was gay right off the bat.”

“Heh?”

“Yeah I know…he said he just had really good gaydar for some reason. Don’t know why it was wasted on a straight guy though…”

“Haha yeah. So you just met him randomly?”

“Yeah. I was just sitting on the steps of Widener people watching and he sat down next to me and struck up a conversation. He’s really cool though.”

“He goes to Harvard?”

“Yup, freshman. Apparently he’s seen me there before…he said he kept noticing some guy with a giant sketch pad,” I said pointing to my pad.

“Haha…yeah that thing is huge…I’m glad you’re not overcompensating for something with it.”

“Oh ha ha. I guess you would know though after getting that nice look in the shower after practice.”

“Heh, couldn’t help myself. So…you guys just talked?”

“Yeah…for like an hour. It was actually kinda cool, I’ve never really just had a random conversation like that. We kinda clicked too, so that was nice.”

“Oooo…wait til I tell Justin about this.”

“God, I’ll never hear the end of it. ‘OH MY GOD, YOU TALKED TO A HUMAN YOU DIDN’T KNOW?!!’”

“HA! Yeah that sounds about right. But that’s really cool that you met a nice random guy. You’re sure he’s not a stalker or anything right?”

“Please…like I’m worth stalking…unless he has a thing for scrawny Asian guys with big drawing pads.”

“Ya never know…there are some weirdoes out there. So what’s he look like?” He seemed pretty intrigued as to what kind of guy could get me to talk without already knowing me.

“Heh, actually I took his picture for my phonebook entry.”

“You got his number?”

“Yeah, he gave it to me…we were actually gonna go hang out or something at some point.”

“Wow…Justin will REALLY love this.”

“Heh, whatever.” I pulled out my phone and pulled up Ryan’s entry. “Here he is.”

Jase took my phone and looked closely. His eyes widened a little as he focused in on the picture. “Ooooo…he’s cute.”

“Heh, yeah I know. Must be the new shampoo I’m using.”

“Haha. You’re sure he’s straight?”

“Why, you want him?”

“Hmm…couldn’t hurt to have a backup incase you come to your senses and dump me.”

“Heh…don’t worry. I’ll stay nice and ignorant about your faults.”

“Awww…that’s so sweet. So what were you guys gonna do?”

“Well he’s from Cali and doesn’t have any winter clothes. Oh yeah and he has no clue how to get around Boston, so I was gonna show him around a little.”

“Sounds good. You should give him a call tomorrow or something and go hang out.”

“Nah, don’t want to appear too needy…hehe. Besides, I wanted some ‘us time’ tomorrow…” I nuzzled up to Jase a bit.

“Awww…that sounds good too. But hey, you should probably get to know him better. That way you’ll at least have one friend at Harvard when you go there for college so you won’t be completely antisocial…hehe.”

“Heh…who says I’m going to Harvard? I probably won’t get in.”

“Oh come on don’t give me that. Justin told me about your secret stash of Harvard paraphernalia.”

“Damn him…I thought I hid that stuff well enough. He used to snoop around my room a lot when we were younger.”

“You two are so weird together,” he chuckled.

“Yeah I know. So what else did he say about this?”

“Just that you’ve wanted to go to Harvard for years and that it was part of why you study so much and do all this academic stuff.”

“Heh…yeah that’s true enough. I’m still worried about it though.”

“Why? Come on Chris, you’re the smartest person I know.”

“Thanks for trying Jase, but trust me, the only thing that’ll make me not worry is when I get the admissions letter saying I’m in.”

“Hmm…can I borrow your computer a sec?” he joked and I laughed. “Seriously though, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Didn’t you take the SAT already?”

“Yeah…2370. Fucking verbal section…who the hell knows what ‘recrudescence’ means anyway?!”

“Hmm…doesn’t that mean becoming sore again or something?”

“Why the hell do you know that?” He just cocked an eyebrow at me. “Oh right…writers…”

“Heh…I need to do more studying for that anyway.”

“When are you taking it?”

“Sometime in December…can’t remember.”

“You’ll do fine on it. I’m thinking about retaking it.”

“Chris…why? You’re only 30 points off from a perfect score.”

“So I have 30 points to make up.”

“Gah…you’re hopeless.”

“Yeah pretty much. My brother got a 1600 on it way back when.”

“You know you don’t have to compete with him right?”

“Maybe not, but he’s a good standard to go by as far as getting into college.”

“I don’t think massive overkill is a good standard.”

“Maybe not, but as close to a guarantee as you can get…he still got rejected from somewhere.”

“Eh whatever…stupid school then. In any case, you’ll still do fine. Oh hey, there’s a thought.”

“What?”

“Why don’t you go take classes there?”

“At Harvard?”

“Yeah. I heard that a bunch of the big schools have summer session stuff for high school kids. It’s supposed to be good for helping you get into the more competitive schools. Besides, aren’t you done with math and science after this year?”

“Yeah I am…ran out.”

“So you could go take summer classes and keep up so you can go into college with a bit more of an edge on everybody.”

“Hmm…when did you get so smart?”

He took a quick look at his watch. “I think it was 15 minutes ago…it’s been building up.”

“Heh, good to know your intelligence has an activation time.”

“Hehe. So what do you think?”

“I don’t know…”

“Come on, what possible reason could you have for not doing it?”

“Let’s see…it’s the summer and I would like at least some time in my life when I don’t have to study, it’s gonna cost a lot of money and it’s probably competitive.”

“Well you’re gonna be slacking senior year anyway since you probably will only have to take like three classes, I’m sure your mom jump at the idea of you taking classes there, so money shouldn’t be a problem and honestly…competitive? Most of the kids there will probably be dumbshits, you’ll trounce them.”

“Heh…thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Anytime. Oh and hey, you should ask your friend Ryan about it.”

“I just met him today…not friends yet.”

“Close enough. Come on…it’s not like you’re gonna be across the country or something so if you’re gonna use the excuse that we won’t see each other, try again. I will personally come up there every day if that’s what you’re worrying about.”

Damn…and there I thought I had an ace up my sleeve. “Well…um…you could have at least waited to say that until I had actually expressed being worried.”

“Haha.”

“What about you?”

“Huh?”

“Why don’t you do it with me?”

“Cause I’m not gonna be out of classes next year.”

“Jase…”

“Seriously. Besides, I need to work during the summer anyway.”

“Where?”

“There are these internships at newspapers or publishing companies I wanna try.”

“Oh ok. I’ll think about it then.”

“Ok. Just make sure you don’t wait too long. You probably need to get recommendations and stuff.”

“Alright, I’ll look it up online later.”

“Good.”

At that point I heard a loud grumbling noise from Jase’s general direction. “Hungry?”

“How’d you guess?”

“Jase, I think the Queen of England knows you’re hungry after that.”

“SORRY YOUR MAJESTY!” he screamed towards the window…goofball.

“Alright, let’s get you fed. I’m glad I don’t have any pets…between you and J…”

“Yeah, you’d probably end up making gourmet pet food too.” He then darted out of the door. I chased him down to the kitchen and after playfully tussling for a little, I started cooking up some dinner.

****

The fall closed up pretty quickly soon after. After two or three tries, the snow finally started to stick and the temperature dropped down to a bearable, but still cold 30 degrees F. I had finished up my art project over the remainder of that weekend. Mr. Harris loved it and even honored my wish not to display it since it was very personal…got an A and a “I’m glad you were so passionate about this” from Mr. Harris…score. The drawing and the smaller computer generated images that I made to accompany it found a home on Jason’s bedroom wall. He decided that since we usually got together at my house, it was better in his room since I wasn’t there and he wanted more pictures of me…also I could always draw more pictures of him, so he included that in his justification.

After being pestered a few times by Justin and Jase, I ended up calling Ryan to see if he wanted to hang out. We couldn’t get our schedules to work out for a little while, but we talked a couple of times in the interim. Whenever we chatted for a while on the phone, it was a nice conversation…we would end up talking for about two hours about lots of random things before he had to go to some homework session or I would have to go feed someone. He said he wasn’t too keen on hanging out with anyone he currently knew at Harvard, but he was interested in meeting my friends…especially Jason and Justin…so he told me that I should invite them along to hang out. We scheduled our little get-together on a Friday night after we both finished up a round of exams…it sounded like a good idea for unwinding.

School was pretty much on autopilot for me…just one thing after another for a couple weeks. I was doing fine with everything except the occasional case of writer’s block for some English assignment…Jase was a great help for those though, so it all turned out fine. As we neared the end of the semester, all of my tutees, including Jase, Justin and Paul, were doing fine in chemistry so I felt good about that. I even got to have a little fun with them when I graded some of there exams…I would write a horribly low score on the front page of the exam and write their real score on the second page. They would usually pull some form of A or A-, so I felt fine enough fucking around with them a little. Mrs. Janssen even got a kick out of it when she saw it. “That’ll probably give a few of them heart attacks,” she commented as we laughed over the thought.

After spending the better chunk of a week studying for calculus and history exams, I was finally free…at least a little…for a while. The last big exam period before finals…and actually I didn’t have a history final…woo!...past and everyone got a bit of a breather. That Thursday was also our last soccer game of the season…nice 15-6 record for the season, but we got eliminated first round of regionals…oh well, there was always the next year. Unfortunately the end of soccer meant that I actually had to go exercise on my own without someone telling me to do it…and it was getting too cold to go biking everywhere…grr. Justin told me he was gonna drag me to the gym with him if I just sat on my ass too much, so Jase and I actually thought of doing laps together at the local swimming center a few times a week…sure maybe we both thought it would be a good excuse to see each other with almost nothing on, but it was a good exercise idea too. Also it would be a good chance to spend some time together. As the semester wound down, we were seeing a little less of each other since there was no more soccer and we would both go off and hang out with our own friends on occasion.

Other than the decreased time together, just about everything with Jase was great though. Since our first “I love you,” we had discovered that saying it was a nice way to close out things…we had both felt some of the awkward silences at the end of conversations or hanging out before we both felt comfortable with ending things with “I love you.” It was the perfect conversation ender…oh and it was just great to hear all the time. We both got an increased number of groans or eye rollings from our friends when we were acting too cute together…we would usually just shake it off and continue doing whatever it was we were doing.

****

Jase and I did encounter a rough spot though. We both had deep seeded competitive streaks in us…it usually didn’t bother anything since we didn’t compete against each other in anything for the most part. Part of it was that we both hated not understanding things, especially if the other understood it. One time we were doing calculus homework together and we came across a single problem that was exceedingly difficult. It turned out that it was a bit of a trick problem that required you to realize the need for a very specific rearrangement…usually Jase would crack such things without trouble, but this one was just giving him hell. For some reason however, the problem clicked in my head and I completed it pretty quickly. When he saw that I had finished it, he looked a little shocked.

“How the fuck…”

“I just figured out the rearrangement. After that it’s easy.”

He grumbled a bit. “Easy my ass. God I hate this shit…”

“Come on, it’s not that bad. You just have to…” I didn’t get much farther then that. Jase shut his book, grabbed his hair and left the room. Looking back on it, I guess it came out a little cocky and arrogant…traits I usually tried to avoid exuding. I went after him and I found him sitting on the front steps of my house, brooding. “Jase, calm down.”

“Look, not everyone can get shit as easy as you ok?!” he screamed at me.

I was speechless. He had never yelled at me… “Jase…I wasn’t trying to…”

“Just back off ok?” He got up and went back inside. A few minutes later, he left. I had no idea what I had done to piss him off so much. I was going to try calling him, but I decided that I should just let him cool off…I felt like I must have done something so I just wallowed by myself that night.

The next day I got up and started off to the T a bit early. I wanted to go find Jase and apologize or something. As I neared the T, I spied a familiar figure sitting on the steps leading into the station…it was Jase. He saw me and came up to me. “Hey.”

“Hey.” I was a bit nervous…I wasn’t sure how to interact with him at that point.

“Chris…I’m sorry, I just got really frustrated and I…”

I cut him off. “Jase, I shouldn’t have been acting like that, I just…”

Then he cut me off. “Chris, stop. I shouldn’t have flown off the handle like that…but I do need you to get that you do act like that sometimes, ok?”

I sat silent in my own thoughts for a moment. I did have the tendency to on occasion act like things were simple and painfully obvious when other people had trouble with it…I guess it was my subconscious trying to brag about being smart. “Jase, I’m sorry. I know I do that sometimes…”

“Hey, I don’t wanna get you down about it ok? It just…I know I usually don’t have trouble with math, but I dunno…that just really got to me for some reason. I guess I wasn’t used to not understanding something like that.”

“You don’t have to explain, I get it. I’ll try not to do that ok?”

“You don’t do it that much…especially not when you’re teaching stuff, so don’t worry about it too much…just try to keep it in mind ok?”

We went to school and stayed in the library a while before the start of the day. I was a bit on edge around him…and everyone…for a day or two. After that he pulled me aside and apologized for being so harsh…he really wasn’t being harsh though, just honest. I told him I felt guilty about it and I hated it when I acted like an asshole…at that point he got fed up with my self-deprecation…he kissed me mid-sentence.

He broke off the kiss and looked me right in the eye. “Just shut up, ok? Everything’s fine.”

He managed to convince me that I wasn’t a complete ass and I gradually got back to normal. When Justin found out about what had happened, he just laughed. “Awww, you two had your first fight. SOO CUTE!” I slapped him upside the head for that, but it was nice to laugh a little about it. I usually classified my personality as a combination of modesty and sarcasm…but it was that occasional bit of arrogance that made me not like myself.

****

When the Friday after exams rolled around, I was a bit excited. It was the end of the week, which was a relief and I would be hanging out with Ryan, Justin and Jase…I smiled to myself thinking about how lucky I was to have all these great guys around me all the time. Justin actually commented about the distinct lack of girls in our social circle as we were chilling before going out.

“Hey…you and Jase are gay…shouldn’t you have some fag hags hanging around you?”

“Hmm…well me and women don’t work…and Jase kinda got fed up with the few female friends he had a while ago…” I responded.

“Ohh…like around the me and Katie thing?”

“Yeah. I mean even before that, he said he thought Katie was a bitch, but after that, he just lost all tolerance for her.”

“I think that might have something to do with him hearing her insulting you or something.”

“Oh really? That might be it then…heh. Oh and speaking of women, are you still on hiatus?”

“Eh, I’m starting to get out of it I think. It was sorta nice, but…”

“You’re horny.”

“Haha…yeah maybe a little.”

“Well, I heard from Ryan that groups of gay guys tend to attract good-looking girls, so maybe tonight you’ll get lucky.”

“Ooooo…I knew there were perks to this. YES!”

I chuckled. “J, you don’t need us you know…hell, if you went to school and took off your shirt, you’d get laid within five minutes…tops.”

“Haha…hmmm, actually I’ve never tried that. Note to self: take off shirt at school and keep time.”

“Gahh…why do I say anything that might pump up your over-inflated ego?”

“Hehe. Well, it’s a bit leaky, so it needs a nice blow every once in a while,” he said with a wink.

“I think I’m gonna hurl.”

He pointed to the hall. “Bathroom that way.” I just laughed off the temporary feeling of disgust. “So when are we gonna meet up with this Ryan character?”

“Um, we’re supposed to meet at the yard in like an hour and a half. Jase should be here in a few minutes. He had to run some quick errand for his mom. Speaking of which…” I pulled out my phone for a minute to call my mom to tell her I was going out for a while, so I probably wouldn’t be home when she got there. After she confirmed with me that Justin was with me…she got paranoid about me going out alone, but felt secure when Justin was there…she told me to go relax and have fun since I had been working pretty hard. I shut my phone and went back to talking with Justin.

“So how are you two doing?” Justin asked of me and Jase.

“Very well.”

“Good…I’m really glad.”

“Oh so I hear you and Jase talk every so often…about me.” I thought back to some of the little things that Jase knew that I hadn’t gotten around to telling him.

“Hehe…yeah. We’re buds now. Besides, it’s nice to finally get to joke about some things about you that only I know…muaahahaha,” he cackled with a nice Maleficent imitation.

“Eh, at least you two get along…I promise I’ll try harder with your next girl.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it. If you don’t get along, I’ll just take that as a sign that she’s a complete bitch and dump her.”

“Haha. Well we should go find you a nice one though…you deserve it.”

“Heh, whatever. It’ll happen if it happens.”

Just then I heard my front door open and close. “Oh that’s probably Jase.” I got up to go see, but he popped his head into my room before I got a foot from my chair.

“Hey babe, hey Just.” Jase came in planted a fast one on me. “Ready to go?”

I grabbed my jacket. “Yup, let’s get going.”

Justin chimed in, “So we’re finally gonna meet this mystery guy that got Chris to talk.”

“Yeah he’s cute too.”

I jokingly groaned a little. “Alright you two, be nice. Ryan’s cool, but between the two of you…”

“Oh we’ll be perfect little gentlemen.” Justin and Jase then put their arms around each other’s shoulders and put on the most disturbing set of toothy smiles I could imagine.

“God…that has gotta be one of the scariest sights I’ve ever seen.” They both just let out sinister laughs. “Shoot me now.”

“Aww, come on Ace. This’ll be fun.”

****

I was a little worried about Ryan meeting Justin and Jase…but that passed quickly. We met up outside Matthews Hall at Harvard…he didn’t want to risk getting lost if we met somewhere else…so cute. Much to my relief, he hit it off really well with the two J’s. We decided to head into town and go to Copley and Prudential Center so Ryan could do some winter shopping…he had held off on getting winter clothes for a while, but it was getting to be too cold for him to handle with his current wardrobe.

“I feel so underdressed around you guys…you’re all decked out in the super warm stuff,” Ryan commented as we rode the T into Boston.

Jase replied, “Nah, we’re just faking it…we’re all freezing too, warm clothes or not.”

We ended up wandering around doing random shopping…window and real…for a couple hours. Interestingly, we split up for a little while…it turned out to be me and Justin together while Ryan and Jase went off to check out some stuff. As we separated, Jase and Ryan put their arms around each other and made googly faces at each other…Justin and I got a kick out of it and followed suit. It was actually nice to just go around with Justin alone for a little bit…spending time with Jase…and Ryan for that matter…was great and all, but Justin and I still had a bit of a connection that we didn’t have with anyone else. Spending time with Jase especially was often the highlight of my day, but spending time with Justin was something in and of itself…not better, but different. I had started to feel like all the pieces were coming together in my life…and Justin and Jase each had their own significant slots in my life.

After tracking each other with cell phones and bad directions for 10 minutes or so, our two groups reunited and we stepped outside to go to Newbury Street. After looking around for a few minutes trying to get oriented, we made our way to the North Face store. As we entered, we all shivered to warm up and Ryan just stared like he had hit the jackpot. We perused for upwards of an hour to find him winter wear…and actually Justin and I ended up getting new jackets too since ours were getting a little worn out. After the obligatory “gay consultation” jokes, we all settled on our choice picks and ended up spending about $250 between three of us on jackets and such. Ryan took his new jacket, hat and pair of gloves from the cashier just after she rang them up to put them on. When we left the store, he sighed in relief as he was nice and cozy in his new highly insulated coverings.

“Oh man…this is sooo much better.” Ryan closed his eyes and took in the warm feeling.

Justin chuckled at him. “Sweet…but it’s still fucking cold so let’s hustle a little.”

We decided we could all use food and since we didn’t want to walk too far, we ducked into the Legal Seafood to eat…Ryan had never been there and it was a bit of a Boston thing, so we figured it was appropriate. Legal Seafood was ok food wise…a bit pricey, but the service was usually good and they had a decent selection…and you can’t go around living in Boston saying you had never eaten there.

A plate of steamers, a couple bowls of chowder, some grilled salmon and other various skewered sea creatures later, we were all sitting back patting our full stomachs. When the check came, Ryan attempted to grab it, claiming that we had done him a favor by taking him out on the town, so the least he could do was pay for dinner…unfortunately for his kinda gesture, his hands weren’t quick enough and Justin snatched the check.

“Sorry man, but this is our treat…this time. You can pick up the tab next round.”

“Heh, thanks guys. Just make sure there is a next round.”

Jase laughed and interjected, “Dude, this was great, I think we’ll be hanging out a lot more often.”

Justin had to shoo my hand away from the check as well…he and Jase decided that I shouldn’t pay either since I fed them all the time…I guess all that cooking had its perks. We wrapped up things at the restaurant and then walked through Prudential Center. It was about 9 p.m., but reasoning that we were relatively young, we opted for getting coffee and staying out a while longer. Ryan and I managed to pay for the coffee…turns out we both had Starbucks cards which we insisted on using since we got points for free coffee…yay for the addiction. Justin and Jase were laughing on and off for five minutes after we both pulled out our cards with matching pictures of a cup of espresso.

“Starbucks has you two by the balls!” Justin threw in.

Jase continued, “Yeah you guys are sooo hooked.”

Ryan and I said nearly simultaneously, “I AM NOT HOOKED!” That didn’t really help our case and we groaned to another round of laughter. We stayed in the warm confines of the Starbucks for about half an hour sipping away at our alternative energy sources and chatting. Right as we were finishing up, Ryan got a slightly shocked look on his face and got up quickly. He then reached for his pocket and pulled out his phone.

“Hello?...Oh hey what’s up?...Oh…um, just a sec, I’m with some people.” He sat back down and turned to us. “Hey, do you guys wanna go to a party up at Harvard? This particular one should be relatively snob and prude free.”

We all looked around at each other for a couple seconds. I was a bit tentative because my mom would probably not go for it, but Justin spoke up, “Ace, I’ll talk to your mom, it’ll be fine.” I smiled at that…somehow he could talk my mom into things that I couldn’t…on the other hand I could do that with his mom, so I guess we were even. Why don’t parents trust their kids?

“I should be good for it,” Jase said.

Ryan returned to his phone and got some information. He hung up and turned back to us. “Alright, the party starts in like an hour. Um, when does the T close?”

“The last trains go out at like 12:45,” I volunteered.

“Oh, well college parties tend to run until like 2 a.m. so if you want you guys can crash at my place tonight. My roommate is never there after Friday afternoon until Monday morning.” We all gave him a puzzled look. “Heh, his girlfriend lives on the other side of the building so he’s always over there anyway. He’s fine with people crashing in our place too, we have a futon and an extra bunk.”

Justin had been to college parties before…one of his past girlfriends went to BU…come to think of it, damn she was robbing the cradle at that point, but Justin was still hot as hell a year before…but Jase and I had never ventured into it. We were all looking forward to a nice night of fun with what were hopefully slightly less cliquish and conceited people than high schoolers. Justin gave my mom a call and let her know that we were staying at a friend’s place for the night and not to worry. “Don’t worry Dr. Quan, I’ll take care of him…yup…ok…yeah he’s in the bathroom right now…no he wasn’t….ok I will…g’night…bye.” Damn he was good.

“Why can’t I do that with her?”

“Because she trusts me more than you...and she loves me. God, can you remember when we were like 10 and she wouldn’t let you out of the house most of the time without me or your brother?” Justin smirked. “Speaking of which, you wanna call my mom?” We all chuckled and after a brief, similar conversation with Justin’s mom, we were good to go…I think in retrospect our parents had an understanding that Justin and I always looked out for each other, so it was the times that we were going off alone that they should be concerned. A little while later, we gathered ourselves up and headed out to catch the T.

On the T ride to Harvard, Jase brought up with Ryan that I was thinking about going to Harvard for their summer high school program…he really wanted me to do it. Ryan looked over to me. “Hey Chris, you should really do it. I actually did one of those at Columbia when I was in high school. It’s a good way to find out if you’ll like a school or not and it doesn’t hurt to have good college class grades on your record when you apply.”

“Oh…so why didn’t you go to Columbia?”

“Well it turns out I hate New York. Go figure.” We all laughed aloud at that…yup, he had the perfect mindset to be in Boston. “Oh and hey, I’m probably gonna be here this summer anyway, I wanna take organic chemistry and get it out of the way before next year.”

“Oh really? Is that the only reason?” I cocked an eyebrow at him knowingly.

“Haha…ok so I don’t want to go home either…but that’s not the point.”

Ryan and I chatted a little about the idea as we rode up into Cambridge. As the train pulled into Harvard Square, it was about 10 p.m., so we had a little time to kill before heading out to the party. Ryan led us into Matthews Hall and up to his room. The suite was pretty nice…decent sized common room with two small bedrooms for some measure of privacy. The common room was well appointed with a big futon, TV, stereo system and two desks with computers.

“Well this is it. We can just chill here until you want to head over. Oh!” He turned around and went into what I assumed at the time was his bedroom. We heard him say, “Do you guys drink or no?”

At that point I had never had alcohol outside of cough medicine and the like, but Justin seemed receptive enough. Jase wasn’t apprehensive either, so I figured, why not? Ryan returned to the common room with a couple bottles…rum and vodka…the bottles were frosted over from being in a freezer. He set them down on his desk and grabbed a couple varieties of fruit juice and soda along with an assortment of cups…yup, college students lived there alright. I was quite clueless and Jase, while open to the idea, was also a little lost, so Ryan and Justin took the initiative. At the time, they appeared like mad scientists mixing various concoctions…it was actually a little funny as the two jabbered back and forth while combining liquids. A few minutes later, there were eight drinks on the desk of various colors and consistencies. Despite trying to be a good boy most of the time, I tried to not be a complete loser and randomly chose a drink. Now kids, don’t do this at home…or anywhere else…there, now that I’ve said that…

“Cheers.” We all clanked cups together and took swigs…within a couple seconds I was coughing.

“Aggh…damn J, what did you put in this?” I had chosen a screwdriver…and Justin was quite liberal with the vodka.

“Haha, ok maybe I did make it a bit strong,” he offered as he took a quick sip from the drink. “Oh wow…yeah I guess I went overboard.” He grabbed some orange juice and topped off the drink. After a quick mix and taste, he offered it back to me. “There, that should be more bearable.”

It was. In my naiveté, I didn’t understand the appeal of alcohol…but about 15 minutes later I was starting to comprehend. We were all decently buzzed after a couple drinks, especially me and Jase…ok very especially me since I was by far the lightweight of the group. I felt pretty lightheaded, but I was actually enjoying the feeling…being drunk for the first time was pleasant in that I had never felt so loose and everything was funny. Justin and Ryan were holding their composure better than me and Jase. Jase in fact was almost as loopy as me. The veterans got a few nice chuckles over how the newbies were holding their liquor as the time rolled around to about 11. We all steadied ourselves and trekked across the yard. We entered a suite in another dorm…it was bigger than Ryan’s room and was bustling with people. Music was playing decently loud and everyone seemed to be laughing and having a good time. Justin ducked out pretty quickly to talk to some girl he spotted…good ole J. Ryan guided us around for a few minutes and introduced us to some random people that stopped to say hi. We neared a pseudo dance floor where at least 20 people were at least attempting to follow the beat of the music playing.

“Hey Chris, let’s dance.” Jase started pulling me out to the floor.

“Oh no…I don’t dance.”

“Aw come on, it’ll be fun.”

I was still enough in command of my mental faculties to be nervous about dancing with a guy in front of a bunch of people. Ryan caught on pretty quickly. “Chris, don’t worry, you don’t have to be nervous here. Look over there.” He pointed out to a corner and my eyes went wide as I saw two guys making out...and a few straight couples were making out around them…I guess that was the make out corner.

“Oh wow…” I was a bit in awe at the open display, but it did make me feel a little more secure.

Jase caught me in my reverie and pulled me out to the dance floor. He put his arms around me and started jiving to the music. The alcohol was definitely doing its job with me…within 30 seconds I had my eyes closed and I was swaying along with Jase. Ryan started dancing with some girl he knew soon after…he was certainly enjoying himself as they started kissing a few minutes later. Jase and I smiled at the display…I looked back at him and he was already leaning in toward my face. I was practically shaking as his lips connected with mine…but within seconds the anxiety went away and I just took in the feeling. I broke off the kiss momentarily to quickly look around me…no one seemed to care…whew. I smiled and turned back to Jase.

“Feels nice huh? Being able to do that in front of a bunch of random people?” Jase asked, giggling a bit.

“Heh, yeah it does…” I leaned back in kiss him when I was suddenly caught off guard by a loud sound behind me.

“AAWWWWW!!!!” I turned around and saw three girls staring at me and Jase and smiling widely. “That is sooo cute,” I heard one of them say. They waved at us and we meekly waved back. A few chuckles later, they were back to dancing on their own. Jase and I just laughed it off and got back to dancing ourselves.

Over the course of what I believe was 20 minutes, Jase and I had actually separated. We both got caught up dancing with some random girls who seemed very into dancing with the local gay guys. It was fun for a little while…I was doing the best I could since I had some coordination problems from the alcohol…and since I’m Chinese…poor excuse I know, but I think there’s truth in it.

After a while, Jase and I reunited and got a few laughs in about what had just happened. We worked our way off the floor and onto a nearby couch some time later. Ryan and the girl…Janice I think…made their way over as well. I didn’t really notice them at first since I had my eyes closed, but I was made well aware of their presence when I felt someone pinch my ass.

“What the fuck?” I looked to see Ryan whistling and trying to look innocent. “Yeah I think those doubts about you being completely straight are justified.”

“Ry, you didn’t tell me you liked guys too…damn that could be fun,” Janice chimed in. Ryan’s eyes got really wide and everyone laughed at him. After we calmed down a little, we all sat back and took a breather. I started people watching as Jase held me in his arms. About 10 minutes later, we spotted Justin heading over.

“Hey J, where did you run off to?” I asked him with a sly smile on my face.

“Hah, oh I was around...” He reached into his pocket and held up his phone in triumph.

“Got her number huh?”

“Oh yeah…dude, Ace she was sooo hot,” he sighed as he sat down next to me.

“Where’d she go?”

“She said she had to be up early tomorrow for something. We’re gonna get together tomorrow night.”

“Ooooo…that was fast.”

He breathed on his knuckles and rubbed them on his shirt cockishly. “Yeah well I’m good. Haha.”

The party was starting to wrap up and people were departing in increasing numbers. Ryan separated from his girl after exchanging a few words, smiles and a kiss…aww. He came back to us and started, “Well, I hope you guys had fun.” We all chimed in with nods and yeahs.

It was getting late and I was exhausted. The four of us made our way out and back to Ryan’s dorm. By the time we got into his room, we were all ready to collapse.

“Ok, if you guys want to take a shower or something, I have towels there,” Ryan started, pointing at a shelf full of bath towels. “The bathroom is down the hall. Um…I guess you guys can decide who wants to sleep where, huh? Haha. The bottom bunk in my bedroom is open and there’s the futon too.”

Ryan snapped his head towards the futon and then went over to it quickly and pulled out some kind of privacy screen to put around up…he had definitely done this before. Jase and I decided to take the futon and Justin would take the bunk in Ryan’s room. We all decided to shower…Ryan and Justin went first since there were limited stalls in the bathroom. Jase and I showered quickly afterwards and went back to Ryan’s room…he and Justin were already sound asleep. We ducked behind the screen and hopped onto the futon which Ryan had equipped with a big comforter and some pillows. We hit the light and cuddled up to each other.

“This was fun huh?” he asked as he nuzzled into my neck a bit.

“Very.”

“Heh. G’night babe, love you.”

“Love you too, g’night.”

*****

"Haec Olim Meminisse Iuvabit"
-"Perhaps, we'll look back at this and smile," Virgil.